Acceleration of Suguri X Edition Takes Off

This is a very obscure game. I mean, I haven’t heard a thing about it or any prior versions up until I encountered it browsing through the Playstation Network. Even then, I just bought it on a whim, as the game itself was less than ten dollars. Million dollar question, how can a cheap PsN game provide you with any sustainable entertainment beyond trifles for times of boredom? Depends on the quality of the trifle. Maybe a few of you out there recall the Touhou Project bullet hell games?

What if they turned those into a two-person fighter? If they did… that would be ripping off Acceleration of Suguri X Edition, considering that’s the essence of its gameplay. With a good-sized selection of unique characters to choose from, and an even wider array of bullets to blast your enemies with, or at the very least make them run around a bit. Let’s get into what makes the game tick.

Players control a tiny little avatar that acts as the micro-hitbox. Among the more obvious gauges are the HP bars (blue then green then yellow then dead), the Heat Percentage, and the special bar. By dashing, you can dodge enemy bullets and set up for a better shot, but in exchange, you build up heat which causes you to take extra damage. The percentage readout tells just how much extra damage you receive from attacks. The special bar serves the function of absorbing damage taken and dealt, allowing the use of special attacks. Big surprise, right? But bear with me, because the special attack mechanics can get a little complicated. I’ll need to explain standard attacks first.

On the Ps3 controller, X and O are standard fire, though you can hold L1 to do an alt-fire of both buttons. Or, you could hold square and perform a dash fire attack. Triangle fires the specials, but there are a wide variety of ways by which you may do this. Hold O, L1, or square then press triangle to perform the alt-special attacks. Or, if you have a full, level 3 special gauge, you can press all the buttons at once AND triangle to really blow the crap out of your enemy. You’d… really need to look at the control configuration to understand exactly how it works. I still barely understand it myself.

With that out of the way, and since I’m not going to be talking about the campaigns due to the fact that they’re all very silly and mostly irrelevant, I’ll talk about the types of fighting styles. There are a surprisingly large number of means to kick ass in Acceleration of Suguri X Edition. Kae is up-close and extremely aggressive, sending out clones and slashing the crap out of people. Nanako uses autonomous gun-bits that flood the area with missiles and grenades, making evasion a requisite. Iru is a demon of heavy weapons, firing high velocity high damage shots that are easy to dodge yet easy to spam. You get what I mean, right? Lots of different bullets.

You’ll find that the AI like to abuse close-range abilities, swords, high-impact shots, all to lock you in one hell of an evil combo. If you’re familiar with the concept of kiting (juking, strafing, whatever), you know how to counter this. Or, you could not deal with the obnoxious AI and get a friend to play with you. Make sure they like bullet hells. It’s not a Japan-hard bullet hell, but it sure does come close.

All in all, Acceleration of Suguri X Edition is a cute and entertaining little game to fill spare hours with. Considering the cost, it’s very much worth purchasing. So, as I like to say, go out and get it, have fun, all that jazz.